GAY GROUP RAPS COMPROMISE RIGHTS BILL

TALLAHASSEE -- A last-ditch bid for compromise on a Broward County gay rights measure drew fire from a new quarter on Wednesday.

The county's largest gay and lesbian political club blasted a proposal that could lead to new safeguards shielding homosexuals from discrimination in jobs and housing.

But the measure also would water down the county's powerful human rights act -- prompting opposition from the Dolphin Democratic Club.

"I think the county legislators pushed this with the best intentions," said Brad Buchman, club president. "But it would have a disastrous, unintended effect."

The House on Wednesday voted 117-0 to approve the measure, HB 1421, which would reduce the voter-approved human rights act to a mere county ordinance.

That would remove many of the act's toughest potential sanctions against those guilty of discrimination because of race, religion or other qualities, Buchman said.

But turning the act into an ordinance would make it easier to add sexual orientation to the county's list of protections, legislators said.

It would also avoid the need for the Legislature to approve a separate bill, HB 1407, that would authorize Broward County commissioners to put the sexual orientation proposal on the November 1994 ballot.

That measure has been largely bottled up by legislators who consider such a vote tantamount to approving a gay rights amendment.

Buchman's criticism clashed with the views of Broward legislators, who thought they had found an easy way of moving the controversial measure through a resistent Legislature.

"We have so many conservatives in the Legislature, it just makes sense if you can avoid drawing attention to a bill like this," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Davie.

Buchman said he will work to stop the compromise measure from being heard in the Senate before the Legislature adjourns, likely on Sunday. He said he is still hoping to win a go-ahead for the 1994 ballot measure.

A similar proposal was overwhelmingly defeated by county voters in 1990, but gay advocates said a second attempt may prove successful.